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January 3, 2024Albany Symphony’s “Steinke + Mozart & More from 1784”
Albany Symphony’s “Steinke + Mozart & More from 1784” in January will Delight Music Lovers with Beautiful Classics and a World Premiere
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 and selections from Marriage of Figaro to feature renowned fortepianist Yi-heng Yang and singers from The Juilliard School.
The two-time GRAMMY Award-winning Albany Symphony will showcase two of Mozart’s greatest works, Haydn’s Symphony No. 80, and a world premiere by Harriet Steinke on Saturday, January 13th at 7:30pm and Sunday, January 14 at 3:00pm at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.
Performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19, soloist Yi-heng Yang has been described as an “exquisite collaborator” (Opera News) and is noted for her “remarkable expressivity and technique” (Early Music Magazine). Audience members will have the rare opportunity to experience the work performed on the fortepiano – a precursor of the modern piano — as it was by Mozart himself. “We are so fortunate to have an artist as deeply steeped in Mozart’s style as Yi-heng is, joining us to perform this amazing work very much the way Mozart himself would have performed it,” said Music Director and Conductor, David Alan Miller. Yang is on faculty at The Juilliard School where she teaches piano, fortepiano, chamber music and improvisation. She is a director of The Academy for Fortepiano Performance in Hunter, NY, and the creator of their international Fortepiano Salon Series
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 premiered in 1784 and was one of six in the genre he composed that year and was written for the composer to perform himself. Described as “athletic,” combining grace with vigor, the work concludes with perhaps the most complex concerto finale that Mozart composed.
The concert will also feature a world premiere by Harriet Steinke, The Slow Movement. Hailing from Michigan, Steinke captivated Albany Symphony audiences last season with her work Harrietlehre. During the 2023-2024 season she will have new works premiered by the Voyager Reed Quintet, the Civic Orchestra of New Haven and saxophonist Zach Arthur and cellist Kellen Degnan. She completed graduate studies in music composition at Yale School of Music and has received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. “We are very happy to welcome Harriet back to the Albany Symphony,” said Miller. “She is an exciting new voice in the composition world.”
The January program also includes selections from The Marriage of Figaro, considered one of the great operas. In addition to favorite arias featuring talented Juilliard vocalists, the Albany Symphony will perform the well-known and much beloved overture to the opera.
The evening concludes with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 80. Though No. 80 lacks a nickname as sometimes grace Haydn’s symphonic works, it is nonetheless full of character, drama, and surprises. Not for nothing is the prolific Haydn called by some the “Father of the Symphony.”
